1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to systems for computing and recording elapsed time. More particularly, the invention relates to systems for accumulating elapsed time.
2. Background of the Invention
According to well-known practices, time clocks are widely employed to obtain a printed record of the time a worker spends on his job to thereby determine the amount of his pay, dependent on the hourly rate at which he is to be paid. With the usual time clock, the worker "punches" or "rings" in and later punches out when entering and leaving his work area. The times for punching in and punching out are printed on the time card or some sort of recording sheet. From this time card, those responsible for paying the worker first compute the number of hours which have been worked in a given pay period and then compute the amount of the pay for such a period.
Over the years, a great number of time clocks have been conceived and made commercially available, with various objects in mind. Among such prior time clocks and with particular reference to certain aspects of the present invention, is the so-called "elapsed time" time clock which provides not only an indication of the times of arrival and departure but also automatically indicates the amount of time a worker has spent on the job. The advantages of such a time clock are obvious since it is no longer necessary to compute the time the worker has been on the job as a preliminary step to determining the amount of pay he is to receive.
Prior art elapsed-time time clocks have been limited as to the extent they have been used because of the complexity of their design and also because they have in many instances been limited to printing but a single elapsed-time reading on a given time card corresponding to the time between a single entry/exit pair of inputs.
With the advent of digital computers, time recording systems have evolved wherein the input and output times for each employee are stored within the computer memory along with other data such as the employee's hourly rate of pay. At the end of the pay period, the stored data is reduced and translated into a paycheck for the employee.
Recent elapsed-time calculating systems generally employ a remote digital computer for receiving inputs from a plurality of time recordation stations. This allows for one central memory and one central processor; in stand-alone systems, a processor and a memory would have to be associated with each time recordation station. A significant prior art problem is the need for expensive computer memory, whether located at each terminal or located remotely. Additionally, these prior art systems are not suitable for allowing a "flexible" work schedule, defined herein to be a schedule where an employee may enter and leave as he pleases so long as he accumulates at least a minimum number of hours per week. This flexible scheduling is hereinafter referred to as a "flex-time" schedule.
In addition to the memory expense problem referred to above with reference to elapsed-time time clocks in general, another reason for the prior art failure to cope with flex-time scheduling is the need for employees to know on demand where they stand with respect to the number of hours accumulated during a given pay period. This is important so that the employee will know when he has fulfilled his work obligation over the pay period. In systems where data is reduced once per pay period, usually at the end of the period, the employee has to keep track of his time manually. To run a data reduction at more frequent intervals, over what is usually a large payroll data base, would be both time-consuming and expensive.
Still another problem in the prior art time-keeping technology is the use of cards on which is printed employee time information. These cards provide back-up information for what is fed into the computer or in non-computer-oriented systems are actually the time records relied upon for accounting purposes. The cards do not lend themselves for any further use in time recordation after a given pay period has expired since they are either punched or printed on.
It is an object of this invention to eliminate the substantial computer memory required with either of the stand-alone and/or remote computation operations associated with elapsed-time recording.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a time recordation system particularly well suited for use where flex-time scheduling is permitted, providing on-demand reporting of accumulated time.
It is still a further object of this invention to provide for card recycling.